Having traveled so much these past few weeks it was really nice to have a week where my only travel was an easy day trip to Atlanta, where I was to conduct a break-out session for the General Managers at the Davidson Hotels & Resorts Annual Conference.  Despite a broken airport parking ticket machine that caused me to nearly miss my 5:30am flight, it was easy from there as I was on my beloved Delta Airlines and my free upgrades made it so comfortable. 

It was the first time I’d rented a car in Atlanta for several years, so I was pleased to see the new train system connecting to the Rental Car area, versus the former long bus rides.  In no time I was in the car and headed to the Westin  Perimeter North hotel, where the conference was held. 

Immediately upon entering the hotel I could see that this was a very special and well planned conference.  They were all in a general session, while the hotel staff was setting up for an impressive refreshment break featuring a “within 100 miles” theme of locally grown, healthy, and extremely tasty menu items. 

Once the group broke I got a chance to say hi to my contact Pat Lupsha, COO for Davidson.  I had met Pat a few weeks back when he was in town for the opening ceremony of the B Ocean Hotel Ft. Lauderdale, which is near where I live.  I was very impressed upon meeting Pat with his obvious and determined commitment as COO to hospitality service excellence.  He was very clear in his objective, that he wanted a break-out session that all of his GM’s could benefit from regardless of their brand.  So I offered to also write up and include six follow-up hospitality training activities they can use at their pre-shift and departmental meetings. 

Over lunch back then Pat shared their success stores and how their company was among the leaders across brands when it comes to Guest Satisfaction Scores.  Unsurprisingly, he also shared that they consistently beat their comp-set on STR.  It was great to see documented evidence of the connection between hospitality service excellence and bottom line profits. 

Most of my day was spent waiting for my one hour session to begin.  When the time came I was very grateful for such an attentive group, as they had had a long morning already and had just been through a working lunch with only a 15 minute break before me. 

My only regret is that I somehow forgot to take any pictures at all for the blog.  However Pat is going to be sending me some pictures of the conference that I will be excited to share here when they arrive.